


Perspective

by ghastlygrimoire



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon Dialogue, Gen, Guilt, I am trying to play it safe w/ the gore since I know what constitutes as graphic gore is relative, Self-Hatred, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-07-06 06:46:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15880719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghastlygrimoire/pseuds/ghastlygrimoire
Summary: "Then I'll take on the job of protecting Colette!" The brunette boy said, a lot of confidence in his voice. What a fool. The boy could barely manage one man with two of his friends helping him, how could he begin to protect the Chosen?"Lloyd?" The old lady asked, looking to him. "I would be uneasy with just you."The mercenary’s blood turned to ice.Selected events of Tales of Symphonia written from the perspective of Kratos Aurion.





	1. mercenary i

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [a burden, but not a mistake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14745194) by [rarmaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster). 



> While this fic is inspired by rarmaster's own, this isn't meant to be a continuation of it. 
> 
> This concept was already done in Kratos's side novel, but since there isn't a fan translation around that I know of, I decided to take a crack at it. If you want to see a summary of the novel, [taleslations](http://taleslations.tumblr.com/post/171412361602/hello-im-sorry-i-feel-kinda-bad-for-asking) has you covered! That blog is awesome, seriously.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kratos discovers the grave of his late wife, and consequently realizes the identity of the boy at the temple.

"Is everyone alright?" Kratos asked, looking over the group of children in front of him. "Hm, doesn't look like that anyone's hurt." They looked weary, yes, but not severely injured.

"How can I ever thank you for protecting the Chosen?" The old lady by the door asked, a smile of relief on her face as she walked up to him. Kratos focused his gaze on the young blond haired girl, who looked so much like Mithos it unnerved him. Her blue eyes were more gentle, kind, not so full of twisted grief. The same eyes the boy had before his sister was so brutally killed before him.

"I see." He said. "So this girl is the next Chosen." No wonder Mithos was so insistent that he go down to protect her. She really did look like she would match Martel's mana signature almost perfectly. The Chosen did not have the green hair or eyes of Martel, but if he saw her standing next to Mithos, he would have thought them to be siblings, if not twins.

"That's right!" The Chosen said, clasping her hands together and looking at the temple. "I have to accept the Oracle. Grandmother, I'm going to undergo the trial now." Not alone, she wasn’t. The Chosen could fight, sure, but even with her two friends helping her, she still struggled. Well, ensuring her survival was what he was sent down for. The sooner they started, the better.

"Trials?" The brunette boy with the two swords asked, frowning. “What trials?”

"The monsters, I assume." Kratos replied. "An evil presence radiates from within the chapel."

"Yes, thats right." The old lady said. "The Chosen is supposed to receive judgement from heaven." _Not that there was a need to,_ Kratos thought. Mithos was already very sure that this would be the Chosen to revive Martel, and looking at her, he could see why. "But the priests that were to accompany her fell at the hands of the Desians."

"Then I'll take on the job of protecting Colette!" The brunette boy said, a lot of confidence in his voice. What a fool. The boy could barely manage one man with two of his friends helping him, how could he begin to protect the Chosen?

"Lloyd?" The old lady asked, looking to him. "I would be uneasy with just you."

The mercenary’s blood turned to ice.

"Your name is Lloyd?" He asked, looking at the boy in question. His son would be about that age, wouldn't he, had he survived...?

But no. That was impossible.

His son Lloyd had been killed fifteen years ago. Kratos knew what he saw: half eaten Desian corpses, and not a trace of his family to be see. Not a tooth, not a tuft of hair, not a dismembered limb, nothing.

They all perished. None of them could have walked, crawled, limped, or otherwise gotten away from the bottom of that cliff alive that day. Why else would the monsters left half eaten corpses if they didn't...?

His stomach twisted itself into knots, so he put it out of his mind. There might be a time, later, to reflect on this.

Yet he could not fight the anxiety slithering up into his chest.

"Yeah, but who are you to ask for my name?" Lloyd asked. Yes, who was Kratos to ask his name? This boy could not possibly be his son. He was a stranger. They were strangers. They had never met.

The fact that he had the same bronzed skin and auburn hair as Anna was surely just a coincidence.

"My name is Kratos, a mercenary." He turned his head to the elderly lady. "As long as you can pay me, I will accept the job of guarding the Chosen."

* * *

  
Towards the back of Lloyd’s rural home stood a tombstone, one etched with a familiar name:

Anna Irving.

If her grave was here, then that meant… then… his son really was alive. His son was alive and well and he had failed to- no, he didn't even try to find him. He went crawling back to his student he no longer recognized because of his apathy towards finding his son, their son, never mind that he had more than a plausible reason to believe he was dead. What kind of father wouldn't tear the world apart to find his only son? If he could call himself a father, after his failure to scour the ends of the world for Lloyd.

He barely noticed Lloyd telling Colette to wait just a moment when his feet took him to his wife's grave- the wife he killed. _She got a proper grave,_ he thought with relief. She had gotten a tombstone with her name on it, where her son could visit her. It allowed her son to remember he had a mother, a mother who loved him so much she begged her husband to kill her so her son would be safe.

...The fact she had gone to such lengths was likely unknown to Lloyd. This revelation formed a weight in his chest, making it harder to breathe. He'd never know how much love his mother had in her for her bastard of a husband, for her infant son, for the world that had only proved cruel to her time and time again.

He allowed himself to barely brush the etchings with his hand. Even though it was fifteen years old, the tombstone was clearly legible. Although Anna was surely a stranger to Lloyd’s foster father, he did not cut any corners.

Kratos's ears caught the footsteps of Lloyd, and he pulled his hand back.

"Whose gravestone is this?" He asked, turning to Lloyd. His voice was steady, indifferent, yet inquisitive.

"Ah, you heard, right?" Lloyd asked sheepishly. "Its my mom's."

"Anna." He hadn't said her name aloud in so long. "Hmm. Is your father alive?"

"I don't know." Lloyd shrugged. "But Dirk is my dad."

"Yes." Kratos said. "That was a careless thing to ask. I'm sorry." Kratos was sure that this Dirk did a much better job raising Lloyd, more than Kratos ever could, and thus much more deserving of the that title. Lloyd knew nothing of his birth father, which was likely for the best. The poor boy had already lost his mother.

The last thing he needed was to find his birth father, only for him to betray him and take his closest friend to her death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is more of this to come. Initially I planned to have the entirety of the scenes rewritten from Kratos's perspective from the first third of the game in one chapter, but then I realizes that'd be really long. So far in Google Docs, it spans 8 pages, and _I haven't even written all of it yet._ ~~(Granted, the font size is set to 14 and the spacing is 1.5, but still.)~~


	2. mercenary ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In between his conversations with Lloyd, Kratos avenges Anna.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter summary: A select few Z skits from Kratos's POV and in novel format. Only one of these is from a proper cutscene.
> 
> Also - this chapter is specifically where the "graphic violence" warning applies, specifically the third section.

 

The usually chatty group had fallen silent as they filed out of the basement’s oppressive atmosphere into the sunny plaza.

“Parent’s love for their child is amazing, isn’t it?” Lloyd asked at last, not aimed to anyone in particular. 

“So… it would seem.” Kratos replied after the ensuing tense silence that indicated no one else would reply. _It is_ , he wanted to agree, but if he had said that, questions would be raised, ones he did not want to answer.

“I wonder if… Mom died protecting me from the Desians.”

The comment slammed Kratos in his chest. 

“You don’t have any memory from when your mother died?” The question slipped out of Kratos’s mouth, his heart pounding. As soon as he realized what he asked, he regretted it. He was walking on a tightrope here.

Lloyd looked up at him.

“I was only three.” He said. “I hardly remember anything.”

His heart rate slowed. Fate had been cruel to the boy - taking his mother away, kicking him out of his home and forcing him to wander the dangerous world - but it had allowed one small mercy to him. Anna’s death wasn’t carved into his mind like it had been for Kratos. 

“I see.” He said, after a moment. “...Then the best thing you can do is to live her share as well.”

It was all he could say without giving away the kind of man he was or the horrors of that day.

Lloyd took a deep breath, then nodded. “...Yeah.” He said at last.

 

* * *

 

“I… I didn’t know anything.” Lloyd muttered, staring down at the Cruxis Crystal embedded in his hand. “About Mom… About… Exspheres.”

The boy was really taking this revelation roughly.

Then again, so did Kratos, when he found out the true origins of Expsheres millennia ago.

Yet he was older than Lloyd then. Lloyd was still a child, and he had been incredibly sheltered to the horrors of the world.

Whether or not that was a good thing, Kratos had yet to decide. On one hand, Lloyd being ignorant of the horrors that his father allowed to take place was something he once thought was worth dying for. His son did not have to feel the despair that Kratos did in his youth as he watched people turn against each other, dulling their swords from the endless fighting. The scent of festering wounds and decaying corpses were not burned into Lloyd’s nostrils. He did not feel uneasy when they stayed in one place for too long, he did not constantly look over his shoulder for Cruxis. He had lived a life free of any fear, how could Kratos complain about that?

On the other, however... Lloyd had taken the twisted Chosen ritual at its face value. Not that he could blame the boy – its not like he knew better. The severity of the situation didn’t seem to sink in for him, either.

...But it was sinking in now, if the tears in his eyes were any indication. Part of him felt glad he was taking this whole thing more seriously, but a weight formed in his stomach now that Lloyd knew the grisly end Anna had met.

The end Kratos had caused.

“...Yes.” He replied, standing next to him and looking over at him.

“When will I be able... able to stop saying ‘I didn’t know’?” The boy’s voice wavered, his frame trembling and eyes shining with unshed tears as he looked up at the man. Kratos took a breath to steady himself, trying to find the words. There was so much Lloyd did not know, and was probably better off not knowing...

“Not knowing is not a crime.” He began, keeping his voice even. “Crime is remaining complacent in your ignorance and feeling no shame. Humans are… far too powerless to know everything.” _And even more powerless to do much of anything_ , he thought bitterly.

“Yeah.” Lloyd sighed. “Yeah I… I guess you’re right…” The boy focused his gaze on the ground in front of them. “But I… I still hate knowing that I didn’t know. I feel so ashamed for not knowing anything about my parents!” He clenched his trembling hands into fists.

“Your parents care only that you are well.” His true sentiments tumbled out of Kratos’s mouth faster than he could stop them. “Even if you don’t know anything about them, your safety is enough.” The words had been steeping in Kratos’s brain ever since he overheard Lloyd wondering aloud if his parents wanted him to thrive, if they would have done anything to ensure his safety. The answer was a resounding yes, of course, and it tore Kratos apart when his son questioned his parents’ love for him.

(The detached, indifferent part of him reminded him that Kratos the mercenary had no reason to know that, that he shouldn’t have said any of it. It was right, he knew, but in the moment, he did not really care about that. If Lloyd had to learn about the horrors his mother endured, then he ought to know that she loved him more than anything else in the world as well.)

Lloyd looked up at him, his normally expressive face giving away nothing. He squinted at Kratos, opened his mouth, then shut it. “...I wonder if you’re right.” He said at last, staring at Kratos’s face. “I… hope so.”

 _I am right_ , Kratos thought, desperately wishing he could reassure his son of this. _I know I am_.

 

* * *

 

"Kratos, you pathetic, inferior being!" Kvar spat out as Lloyd and Kratos pulled out their swords. The twin stab wounds in his abdomen bled, further staining his blue coat. That was not enough to kill him. As long as the bastard could still talk on his own two feet, the battle was not over.

The mercenary’s grip on his blade tightened.

"Feel the pain!" Kratos slashed the Desian's torso. Adrenaline burned through his veins, his jaw clenched as he lifted his sword once more. "Of those 'inferior beings'!" He barely registered the second slash as his vision momentarily flashed white. He slammed his sword back in its sheath, not bothering to wipe the blood off his blade as he watched Kvar crumple to the ground. "As you burn in hell!"

The half elf was sprawled on the metal tiles, and this time, he wouldn’t be getting back up. If he tried, well, Kratos would just fix that. Blood was already beginning to pool on the floor around him, and his chest was heaving with every breath.

It wasn’t the end he was hoping to give Kvar, but there was no way he was surviving that, which was good enough. At least he could give Kvar a taste of the hell he put Anna through.

His thoughts were broken by Genis crying out - something about the Chosen’s arm.

He didn’t bother to spare the body a glance as he followed the Chosen and her friends out of the room.

 

* * *

 

“Mom, I’ve avenged you.” Lloyd sighed as they walked away from the still smoldering ruins of the Asgard ranch. His voice was lighter, a hint of a smile in it.

How could he say that and feel so confidently about it? Kvar did not kill Anna, Kratos did. The man balled up one of his hands into a fist, trying to disregard the memory of Anna’s distorted voice begging for Kratos to kill her. It had been fighting for recognition ever since Kvar taunted Lloyd with her actual killer.

Lloyd was naive, he knew. But he didn’t think he was so foolish as to believe he truly, actually avenged his mother.

“Lloyd.” He said, trying to keep his voice steady. “The one who killed your mother was your father. Are you really able to say you’ve avenged her?”

The boy turned to him, a brow raised and his smile tilted. “The one who created the situation that forced Dad to kill Mom was Kvar.” He stated, like it was glaringly obvious, even putting emphasis on Kvar. “Right?” He asked, but it wasn’t a question of him making absolutely sure he was right, more so of asking Kratos if he understood.

“In...deed.” Kratos said, rubbing his forehead. It was mostly to hide the blush of embarrassment that was brushed on his cheeks. “It was a silly question. I’m sorry.”

"No." Lloyd shook his head, smile still on his face. "Don't worry about it." 

 _If only I could_ , Kratos thought as he watched Lloyd rush to the side of his dear friend. While it was true that he felt somewhat better knowing that Lloyd didn't blame him for his mother's death, it didn't change the fact that Anna's blood was still on Kratos's hands, no matter how much Lloyd might insist otherwise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm considering revisiting this to expand it beyond the first act of the game, but for now, I'm going to treat it as finished.


End file.
